Hello. Please forgive this long post. I hope I removed all the inappropriate words. I am all over the place at the moment. My emotions in a blender. Thank you for taking the time to read my story :-(
Where does one begin to write about how they have stuffed up their life? The mistakes they have made, the stupid decisions, the choices that have left you in a rutt and more miserable than you ever thought possible? But knowing that to a certain extent you deserve every single thing because of how you have lived your life and the people that you have hurt along the way. Karma. It catches all of us. How can you make someone love you the way you so desperately need to be loved when they won’t, cant and don’t know how to? Sharing your life with someone who leaves you so empty and wretched, utterly devastated with sadness. But loving them all the same. Loving them with a depth that is incalculable in mere words. Forgiving them their often cruel and unkind treatment. Their ice cold disinterest. Their vicious tongue. The constant critism and hurtful words that cut deep like a knife. Telling me that everything I do is wrong but shouting at me because I don’t do things. But when I do them, he criticizes me. He told me I cook like %^&$. So I stopped cooking. Now he complains that I don’t cook. If I pack the dishwasher, he re-packs it. Same with the laundry when I hang it on the line. Why must I bother to do anything when it’s never good enough? He says that the way he does things is the right way and I just refuse to learn. But I am trying to say to him that there are different ways of doing things. His way is not right and my way is not wrong. We are just different. When I ask things, he snaps at me telling me that I am asking stupid questions. Or being too curious. Why do I need to know everything? His short temper and anger is an ever present monster. Raised voice, swearing and being so annoyed at the world. I don’t know how he lives being so angry all the time. Snapping at me whenever I say something. Because he is reading the paper or watching the TV or whatever else it is that he does that my attempt at communication irritates. Doesn’t he understand that I just want so badly to feel interesting to him. Or feel like he wants to talk to me, enjoy my company, relish time together. But for awhile now, I don’t want to go anywhere with him because he will always find something wrong with something. The traffic, the way someone drives, the shopping centre parking lot, the fact that he has to wait for something, the length of the q, the cashier, the price of things, raising his voice and getting angry. I just avoid spending time with him. It’s easier and less stressful for both of us. I know I shouldn’t but I feel the need to ask him to stop. It makes me so stressed seeing him so unhappy. I want him to be happy. Every time he is so angry and frustrated, it makes me feel that I have failed because there is nothing I can do to relieve him of this unhappiness and constant disquiet he has in his heart. I wanted so badly to help him heal, make him feel loved and happy and I have failed again and again again. And I don’t know where to start anymore. Its seems as if I make it worse. So I just leave him alone. Try to let him be. Try to not make him angry even though inside I am aching inside to make it all okay. Just watching and wishing I understood how to make him happy and be less disappointed in everything. Even if something he cooks doesn’t work out, he will throw it away, have a temper tantrum, swearing and banging stuff. I just want to hide sometimes. And if I ask him to calm down he tells me to shut the %$#@ up because I am making it worse. I love him. I know I love him. But when we first met I was so in love with him. Absolutely and completely. But now, I don’t like him most of the time. I wish we could talk. But he is an angry, temperamental, hurtful asshole much of the time. Sometimes we laugh and have a good conversation but they are so few and far between. He can be a total Jekyll and Hyde. He can be laughing one minute and joking and then he just snaps and is cold and angry. Sometimes he just lies down and doesn’t talk to me, or gets up and goes to bed saying goodnight without giving me a kiss. Sometimes I try to kiss or hug him and he says no, you already had a kiss today . . . 1 kiss? Sometimes I think he is joking. Most of the time I just don’t know. But on the other hand he is very accepting of how I look. He never is disparaging about my weight. He is very supportive and kind to me about that. Never, ever has he been unkind. Except maybe in anger lashing out and telling me to get off my fat ass and do something in the house. I know he is stressed trying to make money and we have loads of bills and worries but surely it’s so much easier when you lean on eachother to work through the tough times. Finding comfort in having eachother. But he shuts me out and then punishes me with his anger and silence.
But wow it’s lonely. Hugging a pillow at night because you so desperately need to be held, wanting more than anything to feel arms around you, warm breath against your neck, the heat of another body against yours, needing tenderness and affection as much as the air you breathe but getting none of it. Wanting to share so desperately all the passion and desire within you but having been rejected so much that you no longer bother. Knowing that slowly you are losing yourself. Who you once were. Crawling further and further within to hide from the truth. Smiling on the outside. Laughing with the world. Keeping your hidden truth buried inside and sharing it with nobody but your own tortured soul. Learning to just deal with it and pretending everything is okay whilst dying inside from loneliness. But I can’t be angry with him. Because he is a victim. Of so much. He has suffered unmentionable hideous things throughout his life. Things that people should not have to suffer. Things that have left him with deep scars and huge baggage. So I try to love him enough for both of us. But the price is really high. I have become someone I barely recognize because I tried so hard to make him happy. He didn't like affection romance my poems my tenderness my gentle nature my sensuality all of the things that made me, me. I put my very essence in a box in order to make him less uncomfortable. I betrayed myself above all else. I am far from perfect but I love with all of me, completely, passionately and with my total self. I don’t love in mediocrity. I gave him my entire soul heart mind body and would have given him more if I had it to give and little by little he just destroyed me. I don’t recognize myself.
We have only been married 4 short years. I thought it would be okay. That eventually it would work out. Thought I could love him enough for both of us. Had enough passion and desire for us both. I didn't. We have been together 9 years but right from the start he was cold, non-affectionate, battled to express himself and struggled with my openness. It really was a disaster waiting to happen because I am just an emotional basketcase and he is such a hot head. But the heart wants what it wants. My love for him was . . . is . . . stronger than anything I thought possible. I love this man beyond explanation. Trying to express it in words would merely sully its beauty and purity. He is my soulmate. I truly believe that. We just cannot seem to find eachother and pass like strangers sometimes, not connecting at all.
The sad thing is that I loved him so much. More than I ever thought possible. But that all changed. The intense beautiful and complete love I felt for him is lying hidden right now. I am holding onto such anger, sadness and feelings of confusion and betrayal. When he threw all my love back in my face, it was as if someone turned off a switch and my love went into hiding, it’s been replaced with disappointment, anger, sadness and so much pain.
I am useless when it comes to doing things around the house. I know this. But does this make me a bad person? I don’t really care about all that stuff. For me life is about living, enjoying, laughing, and sharing. When I come home I want to shower or have a bath together or just listen to music and lie together and make love. I don't care about dinner, cleaning the house, etc. I don’t know how to be that person. Or perhaps I just don’t want to be? He is so much more disciplined that I am. He thinks about all the important things and I focus on the things that don’t seem to matter to him at all. The things that matter so much to me. For years he has always had an excuse for why there is no intimacy in our lives except for me pleasing him with nothing in return. For no closeness. No love.
He is old fashioned. Believes a woman should be looked after by a man. The fact that since we met, my parents and I helped him out a lot financially makes him feel emasculated. I own the house, the cars, the furniture, etc. I am a very open minded person sexually and took the lead in the bedroom too. But he is pissed off that I don't want to be a domestic goddess. I don't care. I work all day. And just want to forget all that stuff when I get home. Get lost in the things I love most. When I come home I want to make love not worry about dinner. He was previously married to a woman who physically abused him and who was a domestic goddess. But she treated him so badly. She was fastidious about their house being spotless. They were not allowed to go out until everything was shiny clean. And she would deliberately try hurt him by going out drinking with other men in slutty clothes. They had a very angry marriage with verbal and physical abuse. He walked out eventually. He left her everything just to get out. Then he meets me. Total opposite. Loving passionate kind loyal gentle etc and he has just treated me awfully from day 1. No affection. Cold. Distant. But I loved him so much. Felt his pain. Wanted to show him what real love is like. But he just tells me that I overwhelm him. He has never met a woman like me. I am too everything - emotional soft sexual etc. I was always taking photos and sending them or writing sexy emails and sms'. Telling him what I wanted or how I felt or sending messages about what I wanted to do to him or have him do to me. He would sometimes reply with something generic like nice or sounds good but eventually he just stopped replying at all.
When he lost his job and was unable to support us, he felt like a total failure. To top it off I am very affectionate and passionate and sensual and I was trying to understand why he was always pushing me away and rejecting me. If I don’t make the move, we would never have sex. I had to keep asking him to go with me to buy sex toys and only begrudgingly did he come with eventually. But he wouldn't use them on me. He doesn't do foreplay. unless it’s me doing things for him no matter how many times I asked him to use the toys on me, to lie me down and devour me, to shower with me, to just bend me over and ravage me he refused. I feel so ugly. So undesired. I so badly want, need my husband to ache for my touch. To want to be with me, to feel the burning desire I have for him and to know it is returned. To know that he loves the taste of my skin, the feel of my body against his, that he is unable to control himself when my lips and hands caress him. I have so little to offer except my sensuality. I feel so useless as a wife and partner.
And then to make things even worse . . . I found out he had profiles online looking for a nsa buddy. He said he wanted what he called “a normal woman” who would make him feel like a man again because everything about me and our relationship had destroyed that. I bust him 4 times. He claims it was never real. Just fantasy. He never wanted to cheat. As far as I knew, he never actually followed through but whilst he was rejecting me, he had profiles up on many sites looking for an nsa buddy and nsa fun on the side. Meanwhile I was at home begging for some affection, some tenderness and for him to just be a husband, have sex with me, share my passion and desire to be with him and he rejected me constantly. He said I made him feel like meat. He said he feels inferior because I he owns nothing. It’s ridiculous really. A marriage is a partnership. When I lost my job some years ago, he supported us and paid all the bills. He has given so much to our marriage that it cannot possibly be measured quantitively. Without him, the house would fall apart. He keeps everything together. I always tell him how awesome he is, how good in bed, how sexy and how much I love him etc. Why he felt less of a man only he knows. Anyway, I got tired of being rejected and stopped bothering. Your heart can only be broken so many times.
After the 4th time I found him looking for fun on the side, I thought ok he wants to be with other woman, I was so lonely and desperate for some form of affection, to be touched, tasted, made to feel like a desired woman that I suggested that we had an open marriage or went swinging. He declined. I was relieved about this. It’s not what I wanted. He was appalled at the idea. An open marriage means actually being with other people. He doesn't want other men to be able to please me in ways he cannot. He is not a sensual lover. No passion or intimacy. He doesn't want to share me with another man nor can he deal with knowing another man might be giving me pleasure in a way he cannot. We no longer share a bedroom and sex only happens when I really push for it. And then its quick, lasts a few minutes and there is no foreplay or tenderness. He says that he wishes it was different but never makes any effort to change things. For a very long time I really kept trying, giving my all and doing everything in my power to make things okay but I just don’t have the energy anymore. It’s like I am numb. We can talk, have a hug, a kiss on the lips but I have no desire to try anything else. I feel bereft of emotion almost. Just empty. And during that time my husband found himself a lover.
I found out on the 1 of January that my husband had been having a passionate intimate emotional affair with a woman for nearly a year. He had told her that he was going to leave me but at the same time he kept making excuses why he couldn’t. He also kept making excuses why he didn’t want to meet her children. I don’t want to give myself hope but for me that is almost a sign that he was never truly committed to her despite the words he used, the way he treated her and the overwhelming love and passion he shared with her. He would go out to the shops and would message us both, wanting to be in touch with both of us. It’s utterly bizarre to me. I surprised myself when I found out. I slapped him. Straight through the face. But then I was calm. I made it through a family function and sat for over an hour with a smile on my face pretending everything was okay before we went home to have a conversation. I don’t know what he expected but I didn’t yell, cry or scream. I just talked and listened. I think I had expected it for a long time and had somehow prepared myself but in saying that, there is nothing that would have prepared me for the agony that I was now feeling. I know that I was not completely faultless. But I was not going to take the blame for his choice. I was prepared to change and take responsibility for the things that were making him unhappy. And I have. But now nearly 3 months later he has not made any effort at all. Bar when he was drunk one night and he ripped into himself and what he had done to our marriage and his vows, he is cold, distant and treats me like rubbish. But this is no different to the way he has treated me our entire marriage. He has always been a cold, distant, mean and cruel man. Mostly due to his own abuse and suffering throughout his childhood and never dealing with this. I know you must be thinking I am mad for staying but I love him despite all of this. I think this is when you truly love someone for who they are deep inside. I know who he truly he, who he can really be. I have tried for 10 years to encourage him, stand by him and support him. Get him to realise he needs help but he sees this as a weakness, a failure as a man and has refused. But lately the idea is not as repugnant to him. So perhaps he will go and get the help he so desperately needs. He will never be a complete person without it.
Pain . . . this is not pain. This goes beyond that. There are no words that can describe what I currently feel. No words that can take away the agony. Nothing that can bring breath back to my lungs. Stop the feeling that my entire world has been ripped out from underneath me. Certainly nothing that will erase the knowledge that I now possess. I didn’t want to write about this because in putting words on paper, somehow it felt like I was making it a reality, accepting that it happened, acknowledging its existence. By not expressing all that I feel in words, keeping the anguish wrapped inside me, I hoped to muffle the screams that so desperately want to escape my lips. Need to be set free. Perhaps that will also release some of this gut wrenching debilitating agony. But I am afraid that if I let go, I will never get up again. I must keep going in order to survive. It’s the only way. Stopping for a moment, my knees will buckle and I will collapse. My spine becoming liquid and dissolving into the earth with my tears. But how do you keep going when your mind swirls with misery, betrayal, sadness, crushing anguish, thoughts that literally rip out your heart? At what point does putting one foot in front of the other just become too difficult? Putting on a brave face? Smiling on the outside whilst dying on the inside. Feeling your soul shrivel into nothingness. Everything you thought was real having been a lie. Everything you desired and begged for, denied you but given so willingly to someone else. A nobody. Someone who has not travelled your journey. Been there to pick up the pieces and never ever let the demons chase you away and yet she deserved all the things that you so desperately needed and wanted but in his eyes were never worthy of. How does my heart and soul deal with that rejection? With the knowledge that it was so easy to give it away when it was the most important, precious, cherished gift in the world to me and that I hoped one day, he would feel safe and loved enough to open up enough to share these things with me. Now they are worthless. Cheap. Nothing. There is nothing that I ache for anymore. Because it has been done. Just not with me. All the things that I thought were so incredible and magical and that only we shared – what a joke. He told her all the same things only more – more love, more passion, more feeling. He gave her everything that he denied me with an open heart, mind and body. How was he able to express such words of beauty and love to her but never to me?????That wound will never heal. And then the words I dreaded most . . . I am not in love with you anymore, I am in love with her. I want to make love to her every day. She feels like home. She made me feel good. He fell in love with her because her house was clean!!!!! What the %^&*!!!!!!!!!!!! I want to just scream. The crushing feeling within me has left me utterly bereft of breath. I did not ever imagine that agony such as this existed or that it was possible to not utterly collapse and fall apart. But I have to keep moving, keep putting one foot in front of another. It is the only way to survive this. Whatever this is or will be. I am beyond destroyed, broken and hurt. I gave him everything. Every ounce of myself. Knowing how screwed up he is, how broken. I tried so hard to fix him with my love, my desire, my passion, my all-encompassing need and unconditional feelings for him. Somehow, I have never been good enough despite all of this. I am just nothing in his eyes. The woman who stopped him from living, succeeding, having friends . . . All I was trying to do was protect him . . . from himself. His addictive personality, his inability to drink in moderation, to not drink and drive, to not act like an idiot whenever he is around other men trying to be the big man tossing back booze and then thinking he can get behind the wheel of a car. Is it so wrong to not want the man you love smeared all over the tarmac just because he had too much fun? And all the people he wanted to be friends with were people who would encourage him to be a moron . . . not one person would help him, encourage him to be a better person, to find the hero within himself, to step up to the plate and reach all the dreams he has and become all he is destined to be. I just wanted good things for him. The best things for him. And that included the type of people he allowed into his life. People who would love him and care about him. Put him first and always look out for him. Stand by him through everything and guide him, hold him when he needed it, lifted him up when he fell and reminded him just how awesome he is. And in doing that I fucked everything up. I made him feel trapped and controlled. He never saw my protection for what it is. He just felt like I was refusing to allow him to have a life. I was just so scared he would go down the wrong road again. A road that would lead to bad things for him again. He has done that so many times. I wanted to be his light in the darkness. The one place he could feel safe and always want to come home to. My own fears for him, for me, for us, stuffed it all up.
I am so torn. He is treating me like I did something wrong. Like I am the bad person in all of this. He is so mean and cold. The right thing to do would be to leave but deep down I know that he is such a broken person that I would regret leaving without trying with every ounce of my being to help him. I could never deal with not doing that. Even though the pain I suffer now is so deep and debilitating. I so badly wish I could stop loving him. I know he doesn’t deserve me.
[This message edited by trulymadlydeeply at 6:30 AM, March 18th (Tuesday)]
